I didn’t want to admit it, but I was nervous that I might’ve hurt her arms or something. I was angry, but I didn’t think I was angry enough to actually hurt her.

“Hmm… that’s weird. Let me call Miss Warren and find out if she’s okay. Thanks for the call, Mr. Finn.”

I hated that it made me happy that Faith’s last name was still Warren. Why the fuck did I care if she’d been married? I shouldn’t care about anything that had to do with her, but when I thought of her being with another man, which I’m sure she already had been, I felt a strange pressure in my chest that I didn’t like.

An hour later, she showed up at my door. She said nothing to me as she moved around the condo straightening up and bagging the trash. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her. I hated that my body responded to her so easily, yet all the girls who threw themselves at me did nothing for me.

“So since when do you read books about economics?” I asked.

I was sitting on a barstool at the counter she was cleaning.

She didn’t answer, which only made me mad. Who the hell did she think she was? I stood up from my stool and snatched up her backpack from the floor. Unzipping it, I had all the books pulled out before she even noticed what I was doing.

“Put them back,” she said as she came toward me.

I looked down at the books in my arms. English, Chemistry, Economics, High School Biology—books that any college student would’ve been done with years before.

She snatched the books from my hands and stuffed them back in her bag.

“Did anyone ever teach you it was rude to go through other people’s things?” she yelled.

I’d never heard her yell so much when she was younger. Actually, the idea of Faith yelling was almost comical. Her voice was too soft and sweet for it to sound forceful. It came out sounding completely wrong.

“Nope. Didn’t your holy rolling daddy ever tell you it was a sin to have premarital sex?” I responded.

Her tiny hand across my cheek caught me off guard. I could tell by her expression that she had shocked herself as well. She gasped and covered her mouth with the hand she’d hit me with. Fire shot through me, but the wrong kind. Instead of being mad, I was so turned on that I could barely hold myself together.

I reached in and pulled her to me, locking my arms behind her back and trapping her in my embrace. My cheek stung and by the way she was staring at the stinging spot, I was sure there was a fierce little handprint there.

“You hit me.” I stated the obvious.

She pressed her palms to my chest and tried to wiggle her way out of my arms. All that did was press her tiny body against my already rock-hard cock.

“You’re not strong enough,” I said. “Isn’t there something you should say to me?”

I couldn’t have given a shit less if she apologized. I just wanted a reason to hold her against me a little longer. The way she was moving was rubbing against the front of my jeans, and it felt like a damn good dry hump. Her hair pulled away from her face again and every time she moved, the sweet scent of roses and fresh power, her familiar scent, would invade my senses.

She stopped struggling against me and looked up at me with big wounded eyes. For a brief moment, I felt my heart melt a little before I realized my mistake and put my guard back up. It was so easy to forget the past when I held her so close. It was easy to forget what she’d done to me. For a moment, I wished to myself that I could forget.

“I guess you want me to apologize?” she said as she rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’m sorry, but you have to admit you deserved it.”

“I deserved to be hurt?” I asked.

My voice cracked and it made me sound weak.

I wanted to know what I’d done for her to just up and leave four years ago. I really felt like I deserved some kind of explanation. As soon as the question left my mouth, I regretted it. I never wanted her to know how badly she’d hurt me—never. Thankfully, she thought I was talking about her slapping me.

“I seriously doubt my hand hurt you that bad. I’m sure you’ve been hit worse than that before,” she said.

I had been. One of the worst hits I’d ever taken had been by one of my best friends, and he’d died in an accident that same night. Her making me think about Reynolds upset me worse than her hitting me. I felt my arms tighten around her and all the playfulness left me.

“Don’t hit people. You never know if they might hit you back,” I said as I released her suddenly.

She grabbed the counter behind her and had the nerve to look like I’d hurt her feelings.